WARNING: The following post is more savage than usual. Read at your own risk.
I’ve already commented on sexism in this blog, but another form of it has hit my radar and I can’t get it out of my head: Benevolent Sexism. How have I missed this?! This has happened to me throughout my career. In fact, I use it to my advantage whenever possible. Am I being lazy? Am I taking advantage of an unfair societal norm? Am I overthinking this? Peter Glick and Susan T. Fiske did an extremely thorough study on sexism in 1996, in which they defined two types of sexism: Hostile and Benevolent.
Summary: Hostile Sexism (HS) is insulting women because of stereotypes; IE: objectifying women and/or degrading women. Benevolent Sexism (BS) is complementing women because of stereotypes; IE: always being told you look good and never being told your work looks good. Thanks to the Me Too movement, hostile sexism will probably not be tolerated in the office. Women would likely rebel against overt efforts of control. But the facade of BS makes women think this control is okay. After all, men are trying to take care of us, right? It’s all warm and fuzzy until you realize you’re contributing to the sabotage of your leadership goals.
Stereotypes:
Women are born kind, emotional, and compassionate. You grab a coffee for your male coworker while getting your own. He praises you for your thoughtfulness. When you suggest he get it next time, he calls you,“bossy.”
Women are weak, sensitive, and vulnerable. Your male coworker gently takes the five gallon water bottle from you to lift it up onto its pedestal then hands you the stack of notes he was carrying and asks you to go make him copies while he changes out the empty bottle for the full one.
Women are more intuitive than men and are naturally more organized. This assumption has you doing the heavy lifting of mediating conflicts, buying the boss’s birthday gift, and being the default note taker in the budget meeting because women are naturally better at those things.
I thought these stereotypes were trivial until my research revealed the attitude behind them. Those men aren’t thinking they’re helping you, they think you’re not capable. Not speaking up leaves your manager with the impression you’re not capable. Consequently, expectations of your job performance is low and you’re overlooked for career-advancing projects. BS seduces women to stay in stereotypical roles reinforcing inequality in both promotions and raises.
Struggles: Since men and women are born physically different, does that mean we should treat each other differently? Since women physically suffer once a month and make, carry, and give birth to children, aren’t we owed some car maintenance and bug killing? Where is the line between chivalry and BS? If we believe a woman isn’t capable of changing a tire, do we then believe she isn’t capable of running a company? If your boss asks you to plan the office holiday party instead of asking the guy in the cubicle next to you who has the same status in the company, has he revealed his assumptions about what men and women are good at? Will those assumptions influence his business decisions (he lets you plan a project, but not manage it) and performance reviews (he then penalizes you for not managing any projects)? Will your male coworker get a bigger raise than you because he has a family to support even though you both do the same job? If you decide to have a child, will the boss judge you as a bad mother for returning to work?
This is a cultural phenomenon that won’t be solved with a blog post. But we can recognize it, call it out, and talk about it. So, what can we do? Share your thoughts here: